Disney Funds Research and Development Labs

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Walt Disney Corporation will be funding two research labs at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in Switzerland. The labs will do work in “computer animation, computational cinematography, autonomous interactive characters, robotics and user interfaces” that will be used by Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Disney Parks & Resorts, Disney Media Networks, ESPN, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Disney Interactive Media Group. Disney has made a five-year commitment to both universities to fund a director and seven to eight principal investigators, plus professors, academic interns, consultants, and collaborators.